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Chancery Building seen from Taleghani Avenue in 2005. The banner reads at the bottom, "Death to America."

The embassy was designed in 1948 by the architect Ides van der Gracht, the designer of the Embassy of the United States in Ankara. It was a long, low two-story brick building, similar to American high schools built in the 1930s and 1940s. For this reason, the building was nicknamed "Henderson High" by the embassy staff, referring to Loy W. Henderson, who became America's ambassador to Iran just after construction was completed in 1951.[3]

The US diplomatic mission has been defunct and the building has not been used by the U.S. since the Iran hostage crisis of 1979.[1][2] Since then, the United States government has been represented in Iran by the United States Interests Section of the Embassy of Switzerland in Tehran.[4] The name currently given to the compound by many Iranians is variously translated as "espionage den," "den of espionage", and "nest of spies".[5][6]

After the fall of the embassy, the Revolutionary Guard used it as a training center, and continue to maintain the complex.[7] The brick walls that form the perimeter (the embassy grounds are the size of a city block) feature a number of anti-American murals commissioned by the government of Iran.[7] The site has also housed a bookstore and a museum[8]). Part of the embassy has been turned into an anti-American museum, and several student organizations maintain offices in the former embassy complex.[9] As of January 2017, the site is open to the Iranian public and foreigners. The Great Seal of the United States is badly damaged, but still visible at the entryway.

When diplomatic relations were broken, the United States appointed Switzerland to be its protecting power in Iran. Informal relations are carried out through the United States Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy. Services for American citizens are limited. The section is not authorized to perform any U.S. visa/green card/immigration-related services.[9]

In February 2009, the Iranian police arrested Marco Kämpf, the Swiss diplomat acting as the First Secretary of the US Interests, after finding him with an Iranian woman in a car. He was immediately recalled to Switzerland.[11][12]

^Luxner, Larry (November 2001). "Despite Lack of Diplomatic Ties, Door to Iran is Slowly Opening". The Washington Diplomat. The only difference is that the Cubans have their own office, which used to be the Cuban Embassy before their revolution. We don't have our own office, because the State Department has kept our embassy, and likewise, the Iranian government has the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

^"Congressmen Pay A Visit to the Iranian Interest Section". The Weekly Standard. 4 February 2016. Unlike the grand embassies of Washington, Pakistan's embassy is a nondescript brick building downtown that looks like it could house any number of commercial enterprises. Inside, the Iranian Interest Section has a cramped lobby underneath a staircase that keeps the rest of the Interest Section out of sight.